At 9.45 to-night the Mall, which had been like the bedraggled aftermath of a party before you have so much as emptied the ashtrays, was transformed to the glittering centre of a city of beautiful nonsense. Earlier the loud-speakers had announced that the Queen at 9.45 would operate a switch on the balcony of Buckingham Palace which would send the light rippling down the whole length of the Mall as far as Admiralty Arch and Trafalgar Square.

The beams of the floodlights leaping to Nelson on his column would be the signal for the lighting up of the whole of London. But when the Queen came it was for the first half minute or so to stand herself on the lighted balcony, tiny, remote and glittering, bowing and waving to the crowd. For that moment she seemed herself the source of the brilliance to come. She was joined by the Duke of Edinburgh and the cheers of the crowd rose and surged and broke against the walls of the Palace.

Then suddenly the beams of the floodlights shot up to illuminate the whole frontage of what even the most loyal subject can hardly in honesty call a comely building. And from it the movement of light ran along the arches and baubles and coronets of the Mall and London beyond, and around it sprang into brilliant light.

The Queen stood still while between the cheering there was an occasional angry shout of "Put down your umbrellas!'' They came down.

Wet and happy the spectators waited for some minutes after the Queen had gone inside before those who were not waiting for her second appearance began to move away. Somebody had brought into the crowd a fat golden retriever on a lead; many were towing small children like so many fish on the ends of lines. "How long will she reign daddy?" one heard a small boy ask. "Years and years," came the reply. "As long as you are alive and longer, I hope."

It was twenty minutes to eleven when the Queen next appeared just ten minutes after a paternal B.B.C., which had been relaying dance music, had advised everybody to take themselves home safely and sleep well.

Nearer at hand the fireworks had started: giant roman candles tossed their little juggler's balls above the roofs of the stands and silver showers made even the floodlights dim.

"We want the Queen!" the crowd chanted. She came, shining from the balcony; the Duke of Edinburgh, tall, behind her, and there was an explosion of cheering.

Originally published in the Guardian on 24 February 1960: Alexander Mountbatten, Queen Victoria's last surviving grandson, was the first royal to take up an ordinary commercial life, joining the navy at 16 and later serving as a director of Lever Brothers

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 26 October 1931: The Queen's niece was married to Captain Henry Abel Smith of the Royal Horse Guards, while the Queen, the Prince of Wales and other bearers of great and honoured names looked on